Cheering Charms
by LyssaWinterlace
Summary: The Next Great Adventure came a bit too soon for Ginevra Weasley. Arriving in Limbo to the news that a Slytherin had discovered a Time Turner and had gone back in time to target her husband in his youth. And they were not alone! To protect her beloved, Ginny must make allegiances where she wouldn't before, and truly test her moral code...


_**In The Case of: Ginevra Weasley**_

It was exactly as he'd described, Kings Cross station, in varying shades of white. The 'place' Harry Potter had found himself after taking the Dark Lord's Killing Curse the second time.

It was his wife that found her way there this time.

Ginevra Weasley, age twenty-three. A tragedy to die so young for a Muggle (surely), but even more so for a witch, projected to live at least a century longer.

The years had been _rough_.

Despite her natural talent and experience on her Houses team, her Quidditch career was out of the question as soon as it started. Where better to target the Chosen One's beloved than up in the air in front of an audience of hundreds? They'd always been about fear and bloodshed.

The grim reality after the Battle of Hogwarts was that the war didn't end.

The Death Eaters didn't quit, why would they? Even without Voldemort they were in charge of everything. Why hide? Why stop?

Sure, the righteous forces banded behind Harry Potter and Kingsley Shacklebolt to drive them onto their back foot. But they recovered in time.

Even those who hadn't taken the Mark, but still held their values, kicked around until they finally got the better of all of them.

So Kingsley was found in pieces in what was left of his office, and Harry took out half of Diagon Alley before the cowards put him down.

Ginny's eyes glistened somewhat even now. It was so cliche, but the last words they'd shared were unpleasant. Harry storming out after another dumb argument being the last she saw of him. Just… awful.

She couldn't say her life had been all awful, her brothers and parents (even Ron and Percy) doted on her as a child, though that stopped at Hogwarts. Her whole family loved her and each other, however they grew up poor. She married her childhood hero, who turned out far better than she could have imagined, though it was for a mere two years. She had managed to make it big as a Quidditch player, onto the Hollyhead Harpies of all teams! Though, she had played for half a season before she had to quit altogether, for everyone's safety.

That was her life, brimming with caveats. Every shining moment dimmed by the brutal shadows cast by their circumstances. Really all beholden to one man.

In all honesty, her life never really recovered after her first year.

She never REALLY escaped Tom's influence...

Ginny wondered if her own mother had felt such a crushing sense of worthlessness when she fell to the green curse...

"Ah, finally. You're the last one here."

Crisp, sharp and just a little nasally. A figure in a suit, legs crossed and in a high back chair appeared. Several feet ahead of the sniffling woman who did her best not to jump out of her skin.

No ceremony, lacking the crack or pop of Apparition. No flash of light or other spark of noise; there was just a guy there that hadn't been there before.

"I'd say _'take a seat'_ but you don't have time to. Father Time is pissed and won't hold off for much longer."

He spoke, tone rushed. Not giving her the time to process anything. Wispy grey bangs shoved away by gloved fingers as his gaze was fixed. That three-piece suit hanging from the scrawny figure as if one had attempted to dress a skeleton.

"Who-" Ginny tried, jaw hanging a little, failing to cut him off at all,

"Here's the short of it. Two years ago, Daphne Greengrass raided her sister's husband's manor and found a time turner that allowed complete time travel. She geared up, emptied her vaults and travelled back in time to 1981."

Silence.

"What?"

"I am not repeating myself, love." She felt rather than saw a frown, disapproval present in his clipped reply, "This isn't a dream, a hoax or anything of the sort. I am a supernatural being providing you with info I really don't have to. Bloody pay attention."

She flinched, then her cheeks blazed. Invectives rushed to her mouth, mixed in with genuine questions, and she reared up to screech in a way only her mother could master.

Only for nothing. Not a squeak, not a breath could be heard. Fury only mounting as she incredulously realised what had happened,

"Did you just silence me-"

"Keep all outbursts relevant please." Reserved and terse, almost McGonagall but with more suppressed laughter,

"How is that not-"

She seethed as, once again, she screamed wordlessly. She changed tactics for a moment and attempted to cross the difference, not knowing what she'd do when she got hands on him but banking on him NOT enjoying it.

Until she realised she couldn't move,

"When you've calmed down, I will return your faculties. And just this once I will repeat myself." His tone seemed a little mystified, but returning to clipped and rushed once again as he spouted, "Daphne Greengrass raided her sisters husband's manor and found a time turner that allowed complete time travel and travelled back in time to 1981."

Her mind worked behind the veil of fury, dots connecting as she inadvertently put the pieces together.

Daphne Greengrass, a Slytherin and Malfoy's Sister in-law. A girl in the year above at Hogwarts. Ginny vaguely remembered she was investigated for something Death Eater related that fell through when she disappeared.

Time travelled, apparently. All the way to 1981… why-

"THE POTTERS!" She barely registered she'd been given permission to speak, "Did she go back to help Voldemort?!"

A million terrifying thoughts, the past changed. The Dark Lord didn't fall the first time. Or he was resurrected by a loyal follower from the future just after. The horror and misery that would befall their world at such-

"No. She went to fuck your husband."

Again, silence.

Ginny tried to say "excuse me?" But the words wouldn't come out. She doubted he had anything to do with it, so she just stared dumbly. She couldn't even pretend she'd misheard him, and could only hope he was joking.

His dead serious expression said otherwise,

"Has had a massive crush for just as long as you have. Her most treasured moment is the time they brushed hands when forced to partner up in potions." A quiet snicker was present under his voice, "She's installed herself as the _'distant aunt'_ of her younger self and taken control of the Greengrass fortune, hopes to install herself in Harry's life."

She daren't ask if he was taking the piss, thus she had to operate on the assumption this was genuine. Or, at least, react that way. Before getting out of here and figuring out what the hell was going on.

Maybe she wasn't even dead! Cheering charms could cause delusions, maybe she'd gone bonkers from too many.

"So… you want me to stop-" Her words were slow, too slow for her impatient companion,

"Father Time sent someone back already. Another, though former, time traveller actually." Quick but disinterested, flipping a sheet of crisp paper over in a clipboard she hadn't seen previously, "To both keep Harry safe AND mitigate changes to the timeline."

"Wh-who?"

"Hermione Granger. Plucked her from the instance of her death and plopped her soul in her younger self."

Yep. Definitely the Cheering Charms.

"But... what-"

"Then she decided, after a rather unhappy relationship and marriage with your bro... to instead try her luck with her _other_ best friend." Flippant, but still amused, "Again, loved him since her first year, repressed the feelings cause she didn't want to harm their friendship, secretly hated you for having what she always wanted. Do not expect help from her."

"Romantically that is-" It looked up from the clipboard for the first time, milky eyes on her disbelieving hazel,

"I gathered that." Ginny sneered. She felt as if the man was smirking, but she couldn't quite discern any solid facial features on the man's face. Besides those blank milky eyes.

"Next he came to me and asked to borrow Nymphadora from the afterlife. Made her pose as an entirely new student to the masses and privately aid him from behind the scenes."

She sensed the but,

"Turns out though, she kinda got attached. Got a bunch of the older girls into some Sisterhood intent on owning Harry Potter as their 'little brother.' Was funny at first, still kinda is."

Stunningly, it went on...

Romilda Vane was next, followed by Luna Lovegood, both apparently harboured some animosity towards hers and Harry's relationship and used this… divine intervention to change things in their favour.

Romilda's aggravation, she understood. But she couldn't fathom Luna having feelings for Harry OR resenting her at all. Her childhood best friend, hating her?

"Why even send them back?"

"Luna seemed like she'd stay on task. And her natural… airiness would allow her to stand out a little less." He spoke a bit carefully there, though a small inflection of amusement trickled in at the end of his sentence,

"And Romilda Vane?"

He snickered.

"I thought it'd be funny. And it _was_."

Her blood boiled as he continued, her blood pressure (if it was even a factor anymore) must have reached a dangerous high as he listed the next few.

Her fury piqued at the inclusion of a Bellatrix Lestrange made younger, who apparently attached herself to him as a bodyguard in an alliance with a similarly youthful Fleur. However she TRULY wretched at the idea of a pair of Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape from a gender switched universe going back in time to also seduce her younger, oblivious husband.

She teetered and really wished she could sit down. Knowing this spooky, just out of sight, man was sneering over at her now.

She glared and roared out her question,

"Why are you telling me this? To mock me? To gloat?!"

He frowned, she saw it this time, thin white lips on an off white face. Skin stretched so thin she could see every ridge and outcrop of his skull. Eyes sunken and, as she previously saw, pure white, as if substituted with a pair of marbles.

He was hideous, and he cocked his head to the side radiating both utter bafflement and genuine mirth,

"Nah, I just thought that... well... do you NOT want in on this?" Leaning forward in his seat, that dreaded smirk there for her to see in all its teeth like tombstones glory, "I mean, there are over half a dozen witches from the present who've gone back in time to steal your man. Are you alright with just... allowing that?"

[PLOT TWIST: She wasn't.]


End file.
